A black conservative's place for independent thinking and common sense -- A little oasis for those who got caught up in the momentum of the civil rights movement, but failed to discern the false from the true

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Is this true? Has a British official come right out and said it? Will a brave American official soon follow suit concerning the goals of U.S. immigration policies?

Of course, the Brit is already backtracking and claiming he didn't really mean what he said, but that's to be expected in this climate of cowardice and fear in which most people live. Here is the initial story from England's Daily Mail, in which Andrew Neather, a speech writer for former Prime Minister Tony Blair, reveals that immigration policy was driven, not only by the desire to acquire cheap labor, but to "engineer a more multicultural Britain," that is, to "rub the Right's nose in diversity." Or, in other words, to ultimately do away with British culture.

• • •

Excerpt:

Writing in the Evening Standard, Mr Neather revealed the 'major shift' in immigration policy came after the publication of a policy paper from the Performance and Innovation Unit, a Downing Street think tank based in the Cabinet Office. The published version promoted the labour-market case for immigration but Mr Neather said unpublished versions contained additional reasons.

'Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural. I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended - even if this wasn't its main purpose - to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.'

The 'deliberate policy', from late 2000 until 'at least February last year', when the new points-based system was introduced, was to open up the UK to mass migration, he said. Mr Neather defended the policy, saying mass immigration has 'enriched' Britain and made London a more attractive and cosmopolitan place.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think tank, said: 'Now at least the truth is out, and it's dynamite. Many have long suspected that mass immigration under Labour was not just a cock-up but a conspiracy. They were right. 'This Government has admitted three million immigrants for cynical political reasons concealed by dodgy economic camouflage.'

The chairmen of the cross-party Group for Balanced Migration, MPs Frank Field and Nicholas Soames, said: 'We welcome this statement which the whole country knows to be true. 'It is the first beam of truth that has officially been shone on the immigration issue in Britain.'

After learning of the SPLC's director Mark Potok's description of Swain as an "apologist for white supremacists," the Tennessean newspaper turned the episode into a controversy by publishing a front-page story on the angry exchange between Potok and Swain. Then, in the interest of equal time, on October 24, the Tennessean published a front-page response by Swain, entitled Learn to listen to voice of dissent with respect. Here is an excerpt:

. . . Given the potential for gross misunderstanding, I would like to elevate the dialogue a bit. I am a professor of political science and law who often teaches a popular seminar on hate groups in America. Seven years ago, I wrote a book titled The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration. The book warned of rising racial and ethnic conflict because of a set of converging conditions that created a devil brew for racial unrest. Since then the conditions I warned of have heightened. My position remains that racial hatred and bigotry are real and that they can rear their ugly head against any community, including the white community.

It is also true that there are –isms within communities that seek to silence defectors. Ridiculous double standards exist for racial and ethnic minorities. Can anyone imagine that white people would expect all other white people to agree on every issue? Nonetheless, minorities are expected to express solidarity in their political views.

I believe that the continuation of a peaceful American society will depend on our learning how to respectfully listen to one another. One of the most troubling facets of life today is the powerful movement by left-leaning organizations and governmental officials to engage in character assassination, by labeling anyone who disagrees with their liberal utopian vision for society as unworthy of participating in the conversation about our nation's future. A quick look at global history reveals the dangers of following such a short-sighted approach.

Today, conservatives and Christians (of which I am both) are targeted by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center that regularly seek to discredit us. The war on free speech is so pervasive that the White House has deigned to attack Fox News for unflattering coverage of the Obama administration. Americans have cause to worry. . . .

I agree with Professor Swain that there are those on the political left who do not hesitate to go for the jugular when engaging in dissent, especially if they even suspect that you're not taking the "correct" line on race. However, spiteful retaliation is alive and well among the rightwing, or "conservatives," as well. Members of this faction are just as adept at distorting the intentions of their adversaries, and often engage in outright colorful fabrications. Although Swain might not perceive it, there exists also the "conservative utopian vision for society." And, given the media outlets that broadcast literally hundreds of talk shows weekly, rightwingers are able to spread their messages far and wide. As Swain says, however, there is currently an attempt brewing on the left to assassinate her character.

Soon after the Tennessean newspaper published its initial article and Swain's response last week, talk show host Lou Dobbs invited Swain on his radio show. (They claim a friendly, professional relationship, as she is a frequent guest on both his radio and television shows.) There she tried to explain her position, and why she felt the Bodeker film was worthwhile from the standpoint of frank discussion. But once he was apprised of the SPLC's charge of "racism" against Bodeker, Dobbs did not seem to have a further interest in learning anything about the film or the background of the charge against Bodeker. He began to talk over Swain's attempted explanations, even though Dobbs himself is on the SPLC's hit list of "racists." Bodeker is charged by the SPLC with publicly referring to Barack Obama with an "ethnic slur," one that is not considered quite as severe as the forbidden "N" word that Jesse Jackson leveled at Obama back in 2008.

Although he takes the title "Mr. Constitution," it is clear that Dobbs' interest in the Constitution's principles is negligible. One wonders if the SPLC had not added his name to their "hate" list, in attempting to shut down his ability to engage in free speech over the subject of illegal immigration, whether Dobbs would rise to the defense of free speech at all. It appears that it's only his own free speech that concerns him. A Nat Hentoff he is not.

A Republican sycophant he is. He calls himself "Mr. Independent," along with the self-description of "radical centrist," whatever that is. Except for the issue of immigration, in which he expresses disagreement with the conventional Republican advocacy of open borders and amnesty, Dobbs has always toed the party line. Throughout the Bush administration, he carried as much water for the Republican party as all the rest of the rightwing talk show hosts. He recited the items on that proverbial "daily memo" every day as faithfully as Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, et. al. Whatever the talk show blabbermouths were complaining about or promoting on any given day, Dobbs was right there reciting the same mantras.

However, now that his compatriots are out of the White House, and a Democrat is in, he feels free to assume an "antiwar" posture. Only recently has he become a vocal advocate of bringing home American troops from all those worthless exploits abroad. Throughout George W. Bush's tenure, one never heard the "bring them home" theme from Dobbs. Instead, in its place, he carefully peppered his talk with the safe catchphrase of "support the troops." At that time, he appeared to share the view, along with his "conservative" buddies, that those who wished to see the end of foreign hostilities did not support the troops. He was wise enough to play both ends against the middle, so that he would not lose face with his Republican chicken hawks.

Like most people on the right, Dobbs is as quick to hurl the "racist" charge at a perceived transgressor as any multi-cult inspired leftist. Earlier this year, a perfectly sane sounding male caller to his radio show, who appeared to be a fan of Dobbs, offered the suggestion that, given the current circumstances of unemployment, etc., in the country, it might be best to end all immigration, legal as well as illegal. This gave Dobbs the opportunity to take his Super Anti-racist stance. The caller had said nothing about race, but before he could be more explicit with his reasoning, Dobbs inferred racial motives and accused him of being "hung up on group identity." Listeners never got to hear the response of the obviously shocked caller, who did not expect such a reaction from the supposed champion of the country's welfare.

Dobbs accepts the questionable premise that there is racial discord throughout the land. This leads to a form of logic that the only way that racial peace can be attained is for all the races to mix it up sexually and reproduce biracial offspring. As one-half of an interracial marriage himself, he claims to "encourage" such practice.

In a recent conversation with a white woman caller to his radio show, Dobbs cooed over the news from her that, of her four daughters, two are interracially married. He thought this was a perfectly wonderful way to solve what he perceives as America's severe "social problem." And why shouldn't everyone get on board and emulate this woman's daughters? After all, Dobbs and the caller concurred, almost chanting in unison, "It is the year 2009!" By this "late date," you see, every American should be in tune with the times. Apparently, all people should be on the track of desiring to see an end to their own ethnic group, along with the eradication of all the races as we found them here on earth.

Dobbs is known to talk endlessly (and childishly) about the United States as a "melting pot." (Remember that propaganda about the "huddled masses" you learned in the third grade?) He appears to see the value of America primarily through this "melting pot" metaphor. Yet it is clear from what we are learning about so many recent immigrants arriving from disparate parts of the world, being inculcated with this country's values or customs, or even its legal system, is the last thing on their minds. (We will soon be facing serious demands from Muslims for the practice of sharia law already coerced as a second legal system in several European countries. See This isn't Holland anymore.) Sane people understand the urgency of maintaining Western American culture, in order to sustain the country's democratic institutions, including that Constitution of which Dobbs is supposedly so fond.

Geraldo Rivera is wrong in his charge against Dobbs that he is "scapegoating" immigrants. On the contrary, Dobbs is concerned with the "illegal" variety only. He has no problem with the ultimate transformation of the country's culture to Latino or Arab or Somali or with the ramifications that such changes would bring. Dobbs claims that he is not for amnesty, but he might as well be. A moratorium on all immigration would never cross his mind, and we see what happens to anyone who brings up the topic to him.

After the way he pounced on that naïve, unsuspecting male caller, one wonders if, in Dobbs' moral constellation, anyone is permitted to cleave unto his own "group identity," and to want to see it preserved and perpetuated, in spite of the fact that this might not contribute to the harmony that Dobbs believes ethnic biracialism would bring.Read more!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The term "social engineering" never fit an entity better than it does the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This intrusive, tenacious organization has spent years attempting to recast and transform American society to fit its own peculiar ideals. Its directors are missionaries in the full sense of the word, in that they relentlessly work to stamp onto the hearts and minds of the public a distinctive belief system, which teaches what is evil and what is not. This month, the Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR) has published an excellent analysis of the SPLC's attack on FAIR and other immigration reform groups, entitled, Guide to Understanding the Tactics of the Southern Poverty Law Center in the Immigration Debate." It offers much-needed insights. Besides giving the ordinary citizen an opportunity to view the insides of this "watchdog" group, the report should become a reference guide for members of the media, who generally take the easy way out when covering stories about race and/or immigration.

Reporters, editorialists, and feature writers are notorious for accepting, without further investigation, reams of data and materials disseminated to them by a cluster of self-appointed overseers of American society, among the most prominent, the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the NAACP, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Thanks to the fawning acceptance granted them by the establishment media, these groups, and several more like them, have acquired an almost quasi-governmental status in the public mind. When they spread lies, there are few people who will risk inevitable public denigration and stand up to challenge them. In regard to the SPLC, FAIR's new report does just that.

FAIR was founded in 1979, and is the country’s largest immigration reform group. It has more than 250,000 members whose aims are to improve border security, stop illegal immigration, and promote immigration levels consistent with the national interest. Sensible immigration reform would enhance national security, improve the economy, preserve our environment, and protect jobs for American citizens.

Such goals have earned FAIR the designation of a "hate" group by the SPLC. Other immigration reform organizations also have incurred the wrath of the SPLC. They include, but are not limited to the two next largest groups, i.e., the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and Numbers USA. These groups are reputable organizations that handle in a respectful manner what has become a volatile subject. Yet, the SPLC makes it clear that any individual or group that emphasizes the need for immigration reform of any kind is a "hater" and, hence, an enemy of American society.

Although the SPLC claims to take no position on immigration policy, for more than a decade it has acted as a bully by attacking citizens who even suggest that our borders should be monitored, or that the immigration population should be limited. According to the FAIR guide, "In countless articles and 'investigative reports,' the SPLC concluded that just about everyone actively opposed to amnesty and mass immigration was a 'nativist' a 'white supremacist,' or had ties to such groups and individuals."

The SPLC is well known for its ever-growing list of "hate groups" and individual "haters," often referred to as the SPLC's "hit list." Lacking an objective criteria for what constitutes "hate," the SPLC uses its own inscrutable standards. There are some hints, however, that point to a consistency in its multicultural emphasis. Not satisfied with customary, voluntary activity between races, its directors give the impression that they would like to engineer more aggressive policies, in order to bring about greater racial interaction.

In the SPLC's universe, race and how one deals with it, is an important component in determining who is good and who is bad. In order to put the full kibosh on perceived enemies, the SPLC will slap the "racist" tag on them, just for good measure. This was never clearer than in the case of the Mormon polygamous sect in Eldorado, Texas, where, last year, over 400 children were temporarily kidnapped by the government and removed from their parents. With all the troubles faced by these people in just trying to navigate around the intrusions by outsiders, while coping with a system they did not understand, the SPLC came along and declared the group "racist."

In trying to figure out the SPLC's bizarre intervention in this case, one might wonder if the charge of racism was based on the early history of the Mormon church (the sect still adheres to the church's early beliefs on race) or, given the SPLC's propensity for racial meddling, was the charge based on the fact that the men in this sect apparently had no colored wives? Might the lack of any bi-racial children disturb these diversity-minded social engineers?

SPLC leaders are relentless in their venomous attacks on those who they claim try to "retreat from the government and press." On the SPLC "hate" list, there are dozens of little religious groups that do not subscribe to establishment religion. Some believe in their group's special "chosenness" by the Deity. They each wish to have the freedom to worship in accord with their beliefs. You know, exercising the kind of freedom that Americans possessed in an earlier time – even to living separately, if they so determined – before it became mandatory to stay in view of the government and the press.

Groups like the ADL and SPLC, however, refuse to leave such gatherings alone. Instead, these religious sects (some with only a handful of members) are added to "hate" lists and brought to the attention of the public. Members of such faiths are suspect, not for their peculiar doctrines, but because, according to the "watchdogs," no citizens should be allowed to operate on the outside or fringe of what is considered "mainstream" society. Outsiders who prefer to behave in such a manner are clearly not engaging in "inclusive" practices and, hence, could very well be haters of members of other groups and, therefore, "dangerous."

This is the heart of the SPLC philosophy that it conveys in its massive, annual fundraising mailings to thousands of subscribers, in which fearful scenarios are painted of a society ridden with racists, xenophobes, and potential domestic terrorists.

This month, black Professor Carol Swain of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, made the Southern Poverty Law Center's hit list. Deemed an "apologist for white supremacists" by SPLC's Mark Potok, Swain earned this ad hominem attack because she had dared to offer a favorable review of the documentary film, A Conversation About Race. [See my review here.]

The film, produced by Craig Bodeker, is focused on interviews with a diverse group of people of various ages and ethnic backgrounds. They each get to offer their opinions on the racism that they supposedly observe in the world around them. It is Bodeker's suspicion that genuine racism in today's America is a "myth." Many of the responses offered by the interviewees in this film inadvertently appear to confirm this suspicion. In spite of the SPLC's attempt to shame her, Professor Swain stands by her assertion that Bodeker's film would be useful in classrooms to stimulate honest discussions on the subject of race.

It is understandable why the SPLC does not want the Bodeker film, or anything like it, disseminated too widely. The results of the interviews, right from the mouths of ethnics themselves, suggest that blacks are not held back by a pernicious racism driven by white society.

For its purposes, the SPLC does not want America's race story shifted away from that of black victimology -- that is, the tale of blacks caught in a system that prevents them from improving their circumstances in a racist society. After all, where would that leave the SPLC and its ability to raise those millions of dollars annually in the name of "social injustice?"

If racism is not preventing a black person from going about his business, or living his daily life as he chooses, and places no life-threatening obstacles in his path, as in the days of a 1930s sharecropper, then what are we talking about?

Those who are familiar with the history of the SPLC know that this organization does not seek honesty. Like its other counterparts, it is determined to remain entrenched in its self-appointed role as caretaker and guardian of Americans' thoughts and social habits. Professor Swain is yet another target to have encountered the SPLC's tactic of character assassination. In the coming days we will learn to what extent it will follow through with its usual "link and smear" maneuvers and poisonous press releases. (Of course, as a vocal critic of open borders immigration policies, Swain could never win the approval of the SPLC.)

The FAIR guide cites several investigative articles that have been done on the SPLC. They include critical pieces in The Nation magazine, Harper's magazine, and the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser newspaper. Each describes how the SPLC skews, exaggerates and manipulates data to fit its biased perspectives on race, along with information about its questionable fundraising tactics.

As the FAIR guide suggests, an honest analysis of the immigration issue is possible if, after receiving press releases and other data from SPLC directors, journalists would feel obligated to test the accuracy of their information, question their motives, seek out responses to their allegations about other citizens and, most primary, distinguish between advocacy and news reporting.

Over 800,000 people quit the labor force in September. They packed it in. They stopped looking for work. That is six times the number who quit looking in August and five times the monthly average of those who have given up the search for work in the year since Lehman Brothers died.

Adding to the near 15 million unemployed those who have given up looking for work and those who have taken low-paying part-time jobs, the Washington Times estimates the true employment rate at 17 percent. We used to call that a depression. Yet, with nearly 25 million Americans unemployed, or no longer looking for work, or in low-wage part-time jobs, 8.5 million U.S. jobs are believed to be held by illegal aliens who broke into the country or overstayed their visas. ... For every job opening in the country, there are six unemployed Americans. With this surplus of idle labor and shortage of jobs, the men who do the hiring are in the catbird’s seat. They can cut wages in the knowledge that desperate Americans will have to accept what is offered. Comes the rote response: Immigrants and illegal aliens only take jobs Americans do not want and will not do. But, last month, a front-page article in USA Today demolished that argument.

When a 2006 raid on six Swift & Co. meatpacking plants rounded up 1,200 illegal aliens, 10 percent of the workforce, Swift was up and running at full staff within months. How? Native-born Americans in the hundreds came out and took the jobs. Says Vanderbilt University Professor Carol Swain, “Whenever there’s an immigration raid, you find white, black and legal immigrant labor lining up to do these jobs Americans will supposedly not do.” ...

Illegal aliens gravitate to jobs in construction, farming, fishing and forestry. Yet native-born Americans outnumber immigrants three to one in construction and two to one in farming, fishing and forestry, according to Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies. Illegals are thus taking jobs Americans not only will do, but Americans are doing. ...

If jobs are available in the United States, Americans should go to the front of the line to get them, ahead of illegal aliens. And as there are six Americans out of work for every job opening, it is time to call a moratorium on immigration. Why are we bringing into the United States over a million legal immigrants a year to compete for jobs against 15 million to 25 million Americans who can’t find work or full-time jobs to take care of their families?

No serious person thinks that Afghanistan - remote, impoverished, barely qualifying as a nation-state - seriously matters to the United States. Yet with the war in its ninth year, the passions raised by the debate over how to proceed there are serious indeed. Afghanistan elicits such passions because people understand that in rendering his decision on Afghanistan, President Obama will declare himself on several much larger issues. In this sense, Afghanistan is a classic proxy war, with the main protagonists here in the United States.The question of the moment, framed by the prowar camp, goes like this: Will the president approve the Afghanistan strategy proposed by his handpicked commander General Stanley McChrystal? Or will he reject that plan and accept defeat, thereby inviting the recurrence of 9/11 on an even larger scale? Yet within this camp the appeal of the McChrystal plan lies less in its intrinsic merits, which are exceedingly dubious, than in its implications.

If the president approves the McChrystal plan he will implicitly: ... Affirm that military might will remain the principal instrument for exercising American global leadership, as has been the case for decades. ...

At its core, the McChrystal plan aims to avert change. Its purpose - despite 9/11 and despite the failures of Iraq - is to preserve the status quo. ... As the fighting drags on from one year to the next, the engagement of US forces in armed nation-building projects in distant lands will become the new normalcy. Americans of all ages will come to accept war as a perpetual condition, as young Americans already do. That “keeping Americans safe’’ obliges the United States to seek, maintain, and exploit unambiguous military supremacy will become utterly uncontroversial.

It seems like only yesterday that President George W. Bush was bragging about having brought “freedom and democracy” to 25 million Afghans, a key theme in his second inaugural address. For eight years, the American people have been fed one big lie after another regarding Afghanistan. Now, when the Pentagon is saber-rattling to vastly increase the number of U.S. troops sent there, a refresher course on the Biggest Lies is in order.In his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, Bush frightened Americans with a bogus nuclear threat: “Our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears.... We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water facilities” in caves used by al Qaeda. Senior CIA and FBI officials followed up with “background” briefings to the media, revving up the threat that Afghan-based al Qaeda fighters were targeting U.S. nuclear power facilities. This made the terrorist threat far more ominous and spurred support for Bush’s preemptive war policy against Iraq. ...

Both Bush and Obama touted the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan as promoting democracy. But the election in August showed Afghan democracy as an onion-layer of frauds. A top UN official in Afghanistan estimated that a third of Karzai’s votes were bogus. ...

There is no reason to expect the U.S. government to ever become trustworthy on Afghanistan. At best, Washington will rotate its lies, the same way it rotates the National Guard units sent to the Afghan badlands. Americans need to recognize that once their government commences warring, truth will be target number one.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

The spin now being generated to justify President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is curious, as well as amusing. Obama acolytes are busily revising history. It seems that previous recipients of the Prize were not honored, after all, for the well-known reasons given at the time. Instead, like Obama, recipients from Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson to Nelson Mandela were given the Prize for what they might accomplish in the future, for the potential they represented. Those recipients' concrete "achievements," specified in Nobel documents and during the award ceremonies, are to be flushed down the memory hole.

So many news outlets have made a fuss about the negative "conservative" response to the news that Obama has been awarded the Peace Prize. The rightwingers are not alone. Here are excerpts from perspectives by writers on the political left.Glenn Greenwald in Obama's Nobel Peace Prize:

When I saw this morning's top New York Times headline -- "Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize" -- I had the same immediate reaction which I'm certain many others had: this was some kind of bizarre Onion gag that got accidentally transposed onto the wrong website, that it was just some sort of strange joke someone was playing. Upon further reflection, that isn't all that far from the reaction I still have. And I say that despite my belief that -- as critical as I've been of the Obama presidency regarding civil liberties and Terrorism -- foreign affairs is actually one area where he's shown genuine potential for some constructive "change" ...

All that said, these changes are completely preliminary, which is to be expected given that he's only been in office nine months. For that reason, while Obama's popularity has surged in Western Europe, the changes in the Muslim world in terms of how the U.S. is perceived have been small to nonexistent. As Der Spiegel put it in the wake of a worldwide survey in July: "while Europe's ardor for Obama appears fervent, he has actually made little progress in the regions where the US faces its biggest foreign policy problems." People who live in regions that have long been devastated by American weaponry don't have the luxury of being dazzled by pretty words and speeches. ...

But far more important than the lack of actual accomplishments are some of the policies over which Obama has presided that are the very opposite of peace. ... Beyond Afghanistan, Obama continues to preside over another war -- in Iraq: remember that? -- where no meaningful withdrawal has occurred. He uttered not a peep of opposition to the Israeli massacre of Gazan civilians at the beginning of this year (using American weapons), one which a U.N. investigator just found constituted war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. ...

He's worked tirelessly to protect his country not only from accountability -- but also transparency ... And he is currently presiding over an expansion of the legal black hole at Bagram while aggressively demanding the right to abduct people from around the world, ship them there, and then imprison them indefinitely with no rights of any kind.

It's certainly true that Obama inherited, not started, these conflicts. And it's possible that he could bring about their end, along with an overall change in how America interacts with the world in terms of actions, not just words. ... Someone who made meaningful changes to those realities would truly be a man of peace. It's unreasonable to expect that Obama would magically transform all of this in nine months, and he certainly hasn't. Instead, he presides over it and is continuing much of it.

I am generally a supporter of Barack Obama. I voted for him and campaigned in print for his election. However, as I turned on CNN early this morning and saw the news that he'd been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I actually gasped in disbelief. ... As the 2 a.m. CNN commentator interviewed Norwegian experts and past Peace Laureates, just about all of them repeated the obvious: Obama was being honored for the hope of what he might accomplish as opposed to what he has actually achieved. ... Whatever one might feel about Obama, he has not earned this singular award. Few American presidents have received it and of those who have it was bestowed after they'd been engaged in something special. Theodore Roosevelt had helped to negotiate peace in the Russo-Japanese War. Woodrow Wilson had tirelessly worked for the creation of the League of Nations ...

So, at the moment, I believe it is enormously premature for Obama to be getting this great tribute, which to a certain extent cheapens the prior recipients and the work all of them performed over so many years. ... Obama's designation is akin to giving an Oscar to a young director for films we hope that he or she will produce or for a first-time published author getting a Pulitzer for a book he is destined to write some day.

Even just listening to the rationale that, despite overwhelming evidence, they’re giving this prize in the hopes that it will change Obama’s mind or encourage him to do things he hasn’t done—this is a candidate that ran a campaign that was much more based on hope and wishful thinking than it was on concrete policy. So we have hopes being piled on hope and wishful thinking. This is supposed to be a prize that rewards concrete behavior, concrete action. And there are many people out there in the world who were under consideration for this prize who, every day, perform acts that are taken at enormous risk for concrete benefit. ...

I think the moment of just rewarding Obama for awakening hope and optimism has clearly passed. And we certainly see this in the context of Israel-Palestine, where there was a huge amount of hope that was awakened and inspired by Obama’s rhetoric, by his historic Cairo speech. But now we’re past that moment. He didn’t just give that speech yesterday. And now is the moment when we’re seeing his actual commitment to change. And it has been one disappointment after the next. ...

As we know, the US has more than moral suasion to use with the Netanyahu government, if it’s really opposed to settlement expansion. There are billions of military aid that, of course, is never put on the table. And after a little bit of moral suasion failed, we see the same defeatism setting in. ... In the middle of all this, the Nobel Prize Committee awards their top honors to Obama. And I think it’s quite insulting. I don’t know what kind of political game they’re playing, but I don’t think that the committee has ever been as political as this or as delusional as this, frankly.

Turn it down! Politely decline. Say he's honored but he hasn't had the time yet to accomplish what he wants to accomplish.

Result: He gets at least the same amount of glory--and helps solve his narcissism problem and his Fred Armisen ('What's he done?') problem, demonstrating that he's uncomfortable with his reputation as a man overcelebrated for his potential long before he's started to realize it.

Plus he doesn't have to waste time, during a fairly crucial period, working on yet another grand speech.

And the downside is ... what? That the Nobel Committee feels dissed? Read more!

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Specialist Victor Agosto will not be joining Michael Adams, 20, or Dominic Brown, 19, or Grant Fraser, 22, among the dead in Iraq. He could have been one of the grim statistics, since he served there for over a year, but when the Army broke its contract with him, and then plotted to deploy him to Afghanistan, he decided that enough was enough.

Having known of so many young men like Adams, Brown and Fraser, who gave over their lives for nothing, Agosto was now ready to take a stand. After all, if he did not believe that he was worthy of more than just his 24 years on this earth, who would?None of today's soldiers volunteer to be tricked as tools of liars, who work at preventing their contracted exit from the military, who deceitfully extend their tours of service via specious "stop loss" policies. These young men did not volunteer to be misled by their superiors, who break contracts and then threaten them with imprisonment.

Agosto decided he would not allow the trick to be played on him. He had luckily survived Iraq; why should he tempt fate and return from Afghanistan missing limbs or blind or in a body bag? How would his maimed body have protected an inch of American soil? Did any of those dead bodies piled up in Iraq protect even an inch of American soil?

At his hearing, Agosto expressed the belief held by many that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have not made the United States safer, but have actually had the opposite effect. Agosto is not a pacifist or a "conscientious objector," since he says, "I believe that sometimes war is necessary in cases of legitimate self-defense and legitimate resistance." But these wars are worthless, he claims, because, "We're just killing people and spreading suffering with no real justification."

Agosto has proven that he possesses higher morals than those preachy evangelical "patriots," whose years of unquestioned, sycophantic support of the Bush administration played a critical role in aggrandizing these meaningless wars and invasions. He laments the role he played in contributing to the "death and suffering" of others.

When it comes to war, morals and conscience, Rev. Chuck Baldwin, traditionalist minister and a staunch defender of the Constitution, has much to say. He describes how Christian morals took a backseat to the worship of George W. Bush. Professed Christians actually turned their faith upside-down, in order to accommodate political ideology. Baldwin writes:

When President George W. Bush was first elected back in 2000, I well remember the way Christian conservatives went gaga over him. They would deny it, of course, but it was more than hero worship: they acted as if he were a god. Life-size posters filled Christian bookstores. Religious broadcasters and televangelists swooned over him like 16-year-old girls used to swoon over Elvis Presley. Pastors invoked his name almost as a prayer. The Religious Right acted like they had died and gone to Heaven. In the minds of Christian conservatives, G.W. Bush could do no wrong.

In 2008, Baldwin wrote that Christians' worship of Bush had reached such a point that "they have come to accept just about any and all abuses against the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration principles, and even our very way of life." Not only had they become "robotic foot soldiers for universal and everlasting war," they "see no harm in the decimation of individual liberties, as long as it is a Republican who is stealing them." So, now that a Democrat has set out to steal their liberties and bring death to their sons in a continuing, unnecessary conflagration, what's a patriotic warmonger to do? Since their Republicanism is entangled with their Christianity, and the deification of their President is entangled with their Republicanism, where do these good evangelicals go from here? Will these fanatics, who have made warring for Bush part of Christ's imperative, be ready to do the same for the leftist ordained Obama? For the sake of everlasting war, will they join the Obama worshippers in what Rev. Baldwin called, during Bush's tenure, "Emperor worship?" He declares:

When our politicians use our military to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations, our military is abused. When our armed forces are sent off to war without a Declaration of War by Congress, our military is abused. When our politicians use our military for the purposes of nation-building, empire-building, and international politics, our military is abused.

In their fear of discouraging prospective recruits, the warmongering hypocrites in government do not want photographs published, either of dead soldiers, or of suffering ones. When, earlier this year, Associated Press photographer Julie Jacobson's photo of Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard was published in newspapers, government officials had the arrogance to condemn Jacobson and the AP. The photo showed Bernard mortally wounded by a grenade in Afghanistan, and obviously in great pain. Not long afterward, he died. He was only 21.

The intent, of course, is to sanitize these wars as much as possible. It's all right to kill these young men, who ought to be home dating, going to football games, and planning their futures, but it's not all right to let the world learn of yet another young life senselessly cut short – for nothing. Joshua Bernard was not protecting this country from any danger, nor are any other Marines and soldiers. As Paul Craig Roberts writes:

The Marine lost his life not because of the Associated Press and a photographer, but because of the war criminals – Gates, Bush, Cheney, Obama, and the US Congress that supports wars of naked aggression that serve no American purpose, but which keeps campaign coffers filled with contributions from the armaments companies.

Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard is dead because the US government and a significant percentage of the US population believe that the US has the right to invade, bomb, and occupy other peoples who have raised no hand against us but are demonized with lies and propaganda.

These "patriots," led by deceivers like the American Legion, claim that they seek to hide evidence of military deaths in a desire to spare the "feelings" of the soldiers' families. If they really cared about these families, they would be in the forefront of a campaign to bring these young men home.

Roberts declares, "This is where the US government stands today: Ignoring and covering up government crimes is the patriotic thing to do. To reveal the government’s crimes is an act of treason. ... Yet, they still think that they are The Virtuous Nation, the exceptional nation, the salt of the earth."

In 2003, George W. Bush had the nerve to warn the men of Iraq, who might come to the defense of their country against an impending U.S. invasion, not to obey any orders that would lead to "war crimes against anyone, including the Iraqi people." He had the further temerity to warn the Iraqis, who had never pronounced war against this country, and certainly had never tortured any American citizens, "It will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders.'"

Yet, when an American soldier decides to take the same moral position as sanctioned at Nuremberg, he is told that he must always obey orders, and is threatened with time in a penitentiary, if he does not. The foreign soldier invading another's homeland is a hero, but the Iraqi soldier defending his own homeland is a terrorist. Remember the Nuremberg Principles, in which the U.S. persisted? Whatever happened to them?

Laurence Vance calls this "American exceptionalism at its worse and most deadly," and writes:

No soldier in any of the world’s other 193 countries is supposed to follow an order to fire a weapon at an American soldier, sink an American ship, shoot down an American plane, drop a bomb on American territory, invade American soil, mine an American harbor, occupy an American city, torture an American, or kill an American. Those that do are considered terrorists, insurgents, and enemy combatants, all worthy of torture.

But if an American soldier is ordered to launch a preemptive strike against Iraq, he should just follow orders. If an American soldier is ordered to bomb Afghanistan, he should just follow orders.

Social conditioning is powerful, yet you would think there are some doubts and questions that would break through even years of determined brainwashing. One would think that, before going off to slaughter members of an unknown population, you might reflect on just who is asking you to do this, and why. Writer Fred Reed,a Vietnam veteran, suggests to those eager "patriots," who blindly claim they must answer their country's call to kill, that they question whether or not it's their "country" that's calling.

Countries are abstractions, he says, it is people who put out the killing calls. People like the men who run the petroleum industry, or the men in those military corporations who want contracts, or those officers who want to advance their careers and figure they might as well give war a try. Reed writes:

So forty or so years after all the love-ins, the marches ... the Pentagon is at it again. Once more the jets howl over remote primitive countries, countries that did nothing to the US and couldn’t have, and promotions flow, and contracts, and generals demand more troops and more money to stop communism. Excuse me, terrorism. ... With the passing of years, one demon fades into another.

Speaking of armaments and contracts, Victor Agosto, while in Iraq, could not fail to observe what he calls "contractors making obscene amounts of money." He concluded that these wars will not be ended by politicians, because said politicians "are not responsible to people, they're responsible to corporate America." And the only way to make an impact on this powerful clique is for soldiers "not to fight in their wars."

The censoring of photos is not the only form of chicanery practiced by the military brass. An astute Specialist Jeff Englehart tells of the bribes designed to assuage the consciences of these young soldiers. "We get awards and medals that are supposed to make us feel proud about our wicked assignment," he is quoted saying in Refusing to Comply. As we've learned in other instances, many soldiers are not impressed by these shiny trinkets, and would prefer a return of their eyesight or restitution of an arm or leg, rather than the chance to show off some useless metal symbols churned out by a cynical military.

Victor Agosto, and Sgt. Travis Bishop (a veteran of Iraq who the Army failed to deploy to Afghanistan), and Pvt. Tony Anderson (who refused to deploy and is serving 14 months in prison) will not be blown away by angry fighters, as was 21-year-old Collier Barcus, who, in his military photos, still bears the face of a happy adolescent. These men will not become fodder, as have more than 5,000 Americans and hundreds of soldiers from allied nations, who bought the war and "patriotism" propaganda, or were too fearful to challenge the system and the society to which they might return.

Belief: Iran is aggressive and has threatened to attack Israel, its neighbors or the US.

Reality: Iran has not launched an aggressive war in modern history (unlike the US or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of "no first strike." This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders.

Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.

Reality: Iran's military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates. Belief: Iran has threatened to attack Israel militarily and to "wipe it off the map."

Reality: No Iranian leader in the executive has threatened an aggressive act of war on Israel, since this would contradict the doctrine of 'no first strike' to which the country has adhered. The Iranian president has explicitly said that Iran is not a threat to any country, including Israel.

Belief: But didn't President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten to 'wipe Israel off the map?'

Reality: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did quote Ayatollah Khomeini to the effect that "this Occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" (in rezhim-e eshghalgar-i Qods bayad as safheh-e ruzgar mahv shavad). This was not a pledge to roll tanks and invade or to launch missiles, however. It is the expression of a hope that the regime will collapse, just as the Soviet Union did. It is not a threat to kill anyone at all.

Belief: But aren't Iranians Holocaust deniers?

Actuality: Some are, some aren't. Former president Mohammad Khatami has castigated Ahmadinejad for questioning the full extent of the Holocaust, which he called "the crime of Nazism." Many educated Iranians in the regime are perfectly aware of the horrors of the Holocaust. In any case, despite what propagandists imply, neither Holocaust denial (as wicked as that is) nor calling Israel names is the same thing as pledging to attack it militarily.

Belief: The West recently discovered a secret Iranian nuclear weapons plant in a mountain near Qom.

Actuality: Iran announced Monday a week ago to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it had begun work on a second, civilian nuclear enrichment facility near Qom. There are no nuclear materials at the site and it has not gone hot, so technically Iran is not in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, though it did break its word to the IAEA that it would immediately inform the UN of any work on a new facility. Iran has pledged to allow the site to be inspected regularly by the IAEA, and if it honors the pledge, as it largely has at the Natanz plant, then Iran cannot produce nuclear weapons at the site, since that would be detected by the inspectors.

Belief: Isn't the Iranian regime irrational and crazed, so that a doctrine of mutally assured destruction just would not work with them?

Actuality: Iranian politicians are rational actors. If they were madmen, why haven't they invaded any of their neighbors? Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded both Iran and Kuwait. Israel invaded its neighbors more than once. In contrast, Iran has not started any wars. Demonizing people by calling them unbalanced is an old propaganda trick.

Friday, October 02, 2009

To the rightwing Republican who, caught in the throes of his childish "My country, right or wrong" dogma, it is tantamount to treason to observe how far the United States has moved away from its founding spiritual roots. To point out that engagement in perpetual wars upon weaker nations, which has now become the norm, is not exactly what the Founders had in mind, is to "blame America."William Blum describes how the U.S. has not only emerged as the world's major warrior state, but is in the forefront of inducing other nations to turn warmonger. In Ridding the world of the sickness of pacifism, Blum writes about postwar constitutions and social compacts created by other nations, and what became of them.

One of the Articles in post-WWII Germany's new constitution aimed to prevent a return to militaristic behavior. It states: "Acts tending to and undertaken with intent to disturb the peaceful relations between nations, especially to prepare for a war of aggression, shall be unconstitutional. They shall be made a criminal offense."

Who knew then that a major player in trying to get Germany to undermine the pacifist sections of its constitution would be that shining "City on a Hill?" In this recent round of American militarism, Germany had refused to send soldiers to Iraq, and sent only non-combat personnel to Afghanistan. Blum tells of the U.S. government's dissatisfaction with this arrangement. He writes:

In January 2007 I wrote in this report about how the US was pushing Germany in this direction; that circumstances at that time indicated that Washington might be losing patience with the pace of Germany's submission to the empire's needs. Germany declined to send troops to Iraq and sent only non-combat forces to Afghanistan, not quite good enough for the Pentagon warriors and their NATO allies. ...

But NATO (aka the United States) can take satisfaction in the fact that the Germans have put their silly pacifism aside and acted like real men, trained military killers .... Deutschland now has more than 4,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, the third largest contingent in the country after the US and Britain, and at home they've just finished building a monument to fallen members of the Bundeswehr (Federal Armed Forces), founded in 1955; 38 members (so far) have surrendered their young lives in Afghanistan. ...

Ironically, in many other contexts since the end of World War II the Germans have been unable to disassociate themselves from the image of Nazi murderers and monsters. Will there come the day when the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents will be mocked by "the Free World" for living in peace?

And, what about that other former warrior nation, Japan? That country's postwar constitution, in its notable Article 9, states: "Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. ... land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized." Blum claims that these are "words long cherished by a large majority of the Japanese people," and writes:

The United States has also engaged in a decades-long effort to wean Japan away from its post-WW2 pacifist constitution and foreign policy and set it back on the righteous path of again being a military power, only this time acting in coordination with US foreign policy needs. ... Secretary of State Colin Powell, 2004: 'If Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council, and have the kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, Article Nine would have to be examined in that light.'

And then, there's Italy, whose postwar constitution asserts, "Italy rejects war as a means for settling international controversies and as an instrument of aggression against the freedoms of others peoples." Blum observes:

But Washington laid claim early to Italy's post-war soul. In 1948 the United States all but took over the Italian election campaign to insure the Christian Democrats (CD) defeat of the Communist-Socialist candidate. (And the US remained an electoral force in Italy for the next three decades maintaining the CD in power. The Christian Democrats, in turn, were loyal Cold-War partners.) ... For decades, Italy has been the home of US military bases and airfields used by Washington in one military adventure after another from Europe to Asia.

There are now some 3,000 Italian soldiers in Afghanistan performing a variety of services which enables the United States and NATO to engage in their bloody warfare. And 15 Italian soldiers have also lost their lives in that woeful land. The pressure on Italy, as on Germany, to become full-fledged combatants in Afghanistan and elsewhere is unrelenting from their NATO comrades.

None of this is surprising, of course. For a warmaking country that cares little about its own Constitution, why would there be any inclination to respect the enlightened compacts of foreign countries? Read more!

The hugeness of the Goldstone commission report has a lot to do with Goldstone’s Jewishness. Besides destroying hundreds of Palestinian children, Gaza unsettled the liberal American Jewish community nine months ago, and now Goldstone’s report is reopening the wound. Israeli leaders call the report a "mockery of history" and a "kangaroo court," but I don’t think American Jews will be so dismissive.Here is Dan Fleshler, deeply disturbed by the report to the point of labeling himself a "self-hating Jew" out of solidarity with Goldstone, "my kind of Jew." ... : "I do know that Israel will have a difficult time discrediting the report by citing the UN’s past transgressions, or insisting that Israel went out of its way to avoid civilian casualties, or explaining how the report neglected to include the 'context' for Israel’s actions. White phosphorus provides its own context."

Norman Finkelstein sounds similar themes on Amy Goodman today ... : "What’s significant about the report, in my opinion, and what’s significant about what happened in Gaza, I think it marks a major turning point. It’s like the Sharpville massacre in South Africa. Now, Sharpville is not Soweto, but Sharpville was a turning point. Richard Goldstone is a liberal. Richard Goldstone is very supportive of Israel. And it’s now marking the breakup of liberal Jewish support for Israel." ...

And here’s Ilene Cohen predicting that hasbara will not be able to counter the rift this report will cause between American Jews and Israeli Jews: "I think the Israeli propaganda blitz will yield very little for Israel. Yes, there will be a lot of noise, but the damage to Israel was already done, in the form of the many people around the world, including in the US and including in the American Jewish community, by the horrors that people saw." ...

Jeff Blankfort likes to say that the Israel lobby’s efforts are aimed chiefly at American Jews, to rally them to the cause of Israel. Well, maybe that ain’t working any more.

When FOX News host Glenn Beck said during an interview with Katie Couric this week, “John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama,” his comments made headlines. Beck explained that “McCain is this weird progressive like Theodore Roosevelt was.” Beck laid out this view in better detail on his television program earlier this month: "I am becoming more and more libertarian every day, I guess the scales are falling off of my eyes, as I’m doing more and more research into history and learning real history. Back at the turn of the century in 1900, with Teddy Roosevelt―a Republican―we started this, 'we’re going to tell the rest of the world,' 'we’re going to spread democracy,' and we really became, down in Latin America, we really became thuggish and brutish. ... The Democrats felt we needed to empire build with one giant global government ... The Republicans took it as, we’re going to lead the world and we’ll be the leader of it … I don’t think we should be either of those. I think we need to mind our own business and protect our own people. When somebody hits us, hit back hard, then come home."Beck is trying to explain how Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican precursor to what historians call “liberal internationalism,” a foreign policy view that contends the role of the U.S. is to intervene around the globe to advance liberal objectives. ... In their application, there is very little difference between “neoconservative” foreign policy and “liberal internationalism,” and both views are progressive in origin. ... Preferring to keep his audience in the dark on such distinctions, neoconservative talk host Mark Levin was angry that Beck would dare shine a light on them. ...

For eight years, hosts like Levin and even Glenn Beck promoted full-blown neoconservatism without ever calling it by that name. For these mainstream pundits, conservatism simply equaled neoconservatism, and during the Bush years there was no talk of limited government, no concern about “socialism” and no real worries about anything else, other than the War on Terror. The Republican Party was a single issue party; Ron Paul was considered crazy, Joe Lieberman was considered cool―and government exploded. ...

The attacks on Beck by Levin are a reflection of what’s happening on the American Right as a whole, where the old fools’ game of merely corralling grassroots conservatives into the Republican Party is suffering from a severe shortage of fools. I’m not saying that Beck is an all-around, reliable conservative figure, nor do I believe the Republican Party is going to start seriously listening to Paul in the future, but there are at least now, finally, tiny slivers of truth making their way into the mainstream, thanks in no small part to a handful of celebrity truth-seekers, no matter how eccentric or inconsistent they may be.

As a follow-up to my recent post, Far from a "post-racial" society: Dredging up the past forever, here's some further news about the crusade to dig up and investigate old unsolved crimes claimed to have been committed against blacks.Along with the Department of Justice and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the prospective Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, comes the MacArthur Foundation. In awarding a half million dollars to investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell, the Foundation has given him the power to continue his lifelong pursuit of ferreting out crimes of the 1960s. With this recent financial windfall, he says that he plans to re-visit the Chaney/Schwerner/Goodman case, and other "cold" cases.

In my previous post, I questioned the judgment of unnecessarily stirring up racial acrimony over past injustices. It is as if there is a movement afoot to keep blacks permanently in an aggrieved state of mind. Of what value to black children is the resurrection and propagandizing of these past crimes? Is there any point at which black youth can cease to view themselves and their people as victims?

Will we never leave that period where black and white elites continue to cash in on race? Apparently, our "African-American" story will never cease to be a money stream for opportunists of varying stripes. Careers are still being made in this lucrative industry, as they were when I wrote, back in the 1980s, about the thousands of master's theses, doctoral dissertations, journal articles, magazine features, newspaper "reports," "discussion papers," TV documentaries and "specials," and the endless stream of books – all of which would never have made it off the typewriter roller or computer printer were it not for the "black problem." And, of course, the countless conferences, "institutes," task forces, panel discussions, lectures, seminars, and sundry miscellaneous programs and projects that are still being organized by the dozens every month of every year.

Now the money stream is flowing into the coffers of people like Mitchell, another white man of the breed who admits to wanting to make up for his "ignorance" of the 1960s, along with those government bureaucrats who can't find enough to keep themselves busy with present day reality. While this updated class of "researchers" feather their nests and add to their resumes, blacks are to be kept steeped in memories of lynchings and other grim reminders of the past.

Loss of the Issues & Views website

Due to the fact that the owners of the company that has hosted Issues & Views - The Website, since its creation in 1997, have decided to host only sites in Alaska, the website linked to this blog is probably lost.

Issues & Views - The Website (www.issues-views.com) contained hundreds of articles first printed in the hard copy Issues & Views newsletter (1983 through 2002), along with newer articles composed in the 1990s.

Although the former host has re-directed clicks to the website to this blog, it does not appear that there will be any rescue of the website's files or database. For this reason, surfers looking for issues-views.com are landing on this blog. (The website is currently being cached by Google.)

I have learned that an archived version of the website is available on Wayback Machine. Unfortunately, this last capture was performed in 2008, so it lacks certain minor deletions and editing done in 2009 and 2010. However, anyone searching for a particular article should be able to find it there.

- Elizabeth (issues@issues.cnc.net)

Racism is not "sin"

Over the years, as whites have worked to defend themselves against the charge of "racism," they have validated this slur by giving it greater importance than it deserves, and thereby helped to institutionalize it as the world's greatest "sin." As to genuine sin, harboring negative thoughts concerning some group is much further down the list of human deficiencies than bombing Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and Hamburg, or hacking to death with machetes the men, women and children of an enemy tribe. Now, those are sins! Seeking to force "diversity" down the throats of an unreceptive segment of society is the religious mission of rabid, agenda-driven ideologues. None of this apparent concern for "social justice" has ever been about virtue. It's about power.

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Jacobs and Potter on the un-American nature of "hate crime" legislation.